Archive for January, 2007
“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings…”
Carbon-neutral airline takes flight
Silverjet is running a ‘carbon’ neutral airline service from Luton to New York, where £10-15 of the £1000 ticket is spent on carbon offsetting projects.
A consistent tit-for-tat offsetting scheme has yet to be created, different groups sell the same amount of offset for different prices and there’s much disagreement on how effective the projects are. If there’s no way to tell if the offset paid actually helps remove the carbon, it’s comparable to the medieval church selling indulgences. If we really want to deal with air travel carbon we need to stop further expansion of international flights and flat-out stop domestic ones. If airline travel is this destructive, it cannot be justified when alternatives are readily available.
Let’s talk about drugs
BBC NEWS | Politics | Cameron hint on cannabis medicine
“It is right that it’s criminal because if you
decriminalise you increase the availability and make it more difficult
for parents who are trying to keep their children away from drugs.” - David Cameron
Is that really a good reason? If that’s the prime reason why it shouldn’t be decriminalised, then that’s a little concerning. If for the sake of argument it’s said that cannabis is no more harmful than alcohol, should it be withheld from adults purely because it’s impractical to prevent children getting their hands on it? The concern is valid, but not in itself a good reason to favour criminalising it.
